© Geoff Radcliffe 2011
When planning a route, it is useful to know how long it will take to reach each of the various waypoints along the route together with the overall time to complete the entire route. I have created a template spreadsheet, that you can download here, which will create a schedule for you based on the various waypoints of a route. This schedule can be fine-tuned based on other walks you have recorded. You can download a sample spreadsheet based on the Welsh 3000s here.
The spreadsheet uses a variation of Naismith’s Rule. This is a rule of thumb that helps in the planning of a walking or hiking expedition by calculating how long it will take to walk the route, including ascents. The rule was devised by William W. Naismith, a Scottish mountaineer, in 1892. The basic rule is as follows: Allow 1 hour for every 3 miles (5 km) forward, plus 1 hour for every 2000 feet (600 metres) of ascent.
However, most of us walk at different speeds to this depending on our levels of fitness and other factors such as whether our knees hurt during descents (walking poles can alleviate the pain). The template schedule uses the above rule plus allows extra time for descents, rough ground and stops. Entering a different walking speed or rate of ascent will automatically adjust your schedule to give a new ETA to reach each waypoint.
The calculations will show:
In addition, after walking the route and recording your actual arrival times, the calculations will show your time differences from the schedule on each leg of the route.
You can then adjust the values for your walking speed and rates of ascent, descent and over rough ground to minimise these differences and so get a better idea of your walking speed for future walks.
First create a copy of it and give the new spreadsheet a meaningful name. Edit the new spreadsheet entering values only in the yellow cells.
Enter a name for the first waypoint and enter its actual height.
For all the other waypoints enter a name, its height and the following details about the leg from that waypoint to the next waypoint:
Now enter:
Finally enter a start time for the walk as the first ETA value. You should now have a schedule for your route as shown by the times in the ETA column.
After walking the route, enter the actual arrival times at each waypoint (if known) and the actual Rest Stop Time.
The calculator will show:
By examining the percentage differences, you can fine tune your custom walking pace values by editing the values for walking on the flat, uphill, downhill and rough ground to minimise these percentage differences. The fine tuned custom values can then be used to plan other walks.
If you examine the sample spreadsheet, you will see that the actual times were slower than the calculated times. So try adjusting the walking pace to a slower pace and increasing the uphill time to minimise the Time Gain Percentage.